‘Nightline’ Is Thriving in Late Night

Monday

While two talk shows scrap for viewers, a news program makes gains and, on its best nights, comes out on top.

In the heavyweight battle being waged in late-night television, an awful lot of rounds lately have been going to a third man in the ring, the one not slugging it out with punch lines.

While most of the attention, starting in June, has focused on the fight between the new host of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” Conan O’Brien, and his CBS rival, David Letterman, ABC’s venerable news program “Nightline” has managed mostly to fly under the radar — in an upward trajectory.

Viewership for the news show is up 14 percent in the last six weeks compared with the same week a year ago, and, in the most recent two weeks, the program has frequently grabbed the most viewers of the three shows.

“ ‘Nightline’ is a rare example of the broadcast networks’ counterprogramming; it almost never happens outside of prime time,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice president for research at Horizon Media.

Ted Koppel, the longtime, widely celebrated anchor, left “Nightline” in November 2005, and predictions of the show’s imminent demise were prevalent.

Instead the show thrived, by revamping its format to report three topics a night instead of one and, most critically, by going back to producing editions live each weeknight.

“We do feel good,” said James Goldston, the executive producer. “This is kind of the culmination of a process that has gone on for a long time, since we relaunched the show.”

But, as Mr. Goldston acknowledged, “Nightline” was never really a contender for most-watched status in late night until Jay Leno left “Tonight.” “I think there’s another big shift happening in late night,” Mr. Goldston said. David Westin, the president of ABC News, said, “When Jay left, some people were freed up to consider other alternatives.”

Everyone who works on “Nightline” knows it has been a marked show inside some quarters of ABC. A desire to have an entertainment show, and the big profits that one could bring, has led to some suggestions that “Nightline” might have to give up its 11:35 p.m. time slot. (These rumblings were loud when ABC pursued Mr. Letterman in 2002, and recurred, more quietly, recently when the network recently weighed moving its own late-night star, Jimmy Kimmel, up a half-hour.)

In interviews, Mr. Westin, Mr. Goldston and Cynthia McFadden, one of the three “Nightline” anchors, all acknowledged an awareness that the program’s performance remained under constant appraisal. As Ms. McFadden put it, “We know we have to earn it every day.”

Mr. Westin said, “There are no guarantees, but we feel very good about where we are. The network is very pleased with what they are getting with ‘Nightline.’ ”

(One factor not often mentioned is that “Nightline” has the advantage of being rated for just a half-hour, while the other two shows run for a full hour at a time of night when many viewers are drifting away to bed as the minutes roll by. The ABC program would win less often if its ratings were compared to the first, much higher-rated half-hours of the entertainment shows.)

However the audience is parsed, “Nightline” is a real player in this high-stakes competition — and it has every reason to want to get that story out. One way the show has been doing that lately is with lots of Michael Jackson coverage.

The program offered reports related to Mr. Jackson’s death on 12 of 16 nights at one point, 10 times as its lead story.

But as Mr. Goldston pointed out, “We’ve won on nights when we covered health care and Afghanistan as well.” (One health care night was big because of a potent guest, President Obama.)

“I think it’s been helped by a heightened interest in news this summer from notable deaths, confirmation hearings, the economy, health care,” Mr. Adgate said, “but it’s unusual it would increase versus 2008 since it was such an interesting political year.”

Mr. Goldston defended the extent of the Jackson coverage as justified by the intense interest in what he called “a cultural touchstone.” One reason the show was able to pursue the Jackson story so often was the connection another of its anchors, Martin Bashir, had with Mr. Jackson. Mr. Bashir conducted one of the most memorable interviews with the singer.

Ms. McFadden said the Jackson story was “of interest and importance” to the public. And though each addressed the Jackson issue separately, Mr. Goldston, Mr. Westin and Ms. McFadden all made a point of saying they would not apologize in any way for covering the Jackson story as much as “Nightline” did.

“It’s wrong-headed and myopic to think our success is Michael Jackson-driven,” Ms. McFadden said. “The notion that we’re only benefiting because of Michael Jackson is laughable. We won’t be No. 1 for long if that’s the case.”

What has really made the recent success possible, Mr. Goldston said, is a combination of increased news interest from viewers, the opportunities afforded by the change at NBC and technological changes in newsgathering.

“Everyone who works here is capable of shooting stories themselves and editing them,” Mr. Goldston said. Ms. McFadden said that she and one producer went to Afghanistan and did all the camerawork.

Mr. Goldston said “Nightline” also “got onto Twitter early on” and used the service to get out the message of what it was covering. Now more than 800,000 people follow the show on Twitter.

But mainly, he said, the show is succeeding because of “a relentless focus on the news.” Coming on after local newscasts has always been to the show’s advantage, though, before the transition to the new format, “Nightline” was retaining only about 39 percent of the local news audience, Mr. Goldston said. Now the figure is up to 54 percent.

That is good enough for the show to be profitable, although ABC declined to offer any specific figures.

“It’s a profitable show,” Mr. Goldston said. “We’re not at the point of a Leno on the ‘Tonight Show’ — not even close. But it does make money — and we can make more.”

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